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See I had SF3TS on my dreamcast want list for a while. But the DC version goes for like 60 dollars. But They released that SF anniversary pack on the PS2 with SF2Turbo and SF3TS and I picked it up for 15 dollars.

Now I’m going to admit, I have never been a fan of Street Fighter. Ever since the dawn of fighting games, I remember playing it at a friends house and never being impressed. Mortal Kombat on the other hand was an instant hit. Fatal fury wasn’t too bad. But never quite got street fighter.

Yet it is “universally” considered the best fighting game of all time, the whole line. All other fighting games are measured up to it and never achieve it’s level. Who decides this bull?

Anyway, SF3 looked pretty good on youtube videos and reviews so I wanted to give it a shot. I actually had found ST3 double impact at a thrift store for a dollar before. But I didn’t play it too much since I intend to find third strike to devote my time to.

Well, my first impression is that I don’t really like the art. The character art style just doesn’t jive with me. I like my anime to look like ranma or sailor moon. Fatal Fury has good character designs. But all the girls in SF are not attractive at all. That’s half the pleasure of fighting games is monster vs. eyecandy.

Now there were a couple monster things in this game as well. I don’t know what place they have in the street fighter universe. I don’t remember either van damme or jackie chan fighting these guys. But they turned out to be my favorite, and had good animations to go with them.

But I was shocked at how small the moves list was. Some only had 3 special moves. What is this, 1993? They have some bonus moves but they only work if you have a full power guage, and you have to get beat up for your power gauge to increase (huh?).

And then my biggest beaf with all street fighter games (except alpha). They are VERY unforgiving in button sequence. You have to be damn fast (faster than PoS2 controllers can do! Luckily I have some arcade pads) and perfect. No slop at all. And what you think is fast, that still isn’t fast enough! You got 0.5 seconds to roll the thing 8 times and land at exactly 325 degrees and then hit ABXBXABBXSY. They are too hard to pull off easily during a match. I get killed while trying unsuccessfully to pull off the moves over and over again. And how do I get killed? Because the computer opponent is throwing some fireball at me continuously for the entire round.

And the moves in general aren’t very exciting. For the amount of blood, sweat, and motherloving beer it took to pull of all three special moves, they were unimpressive and did little damage.

Before that I played Soul Calibur II and III I just picked up, and I actually liked both of those quite a bit. I played them side-by-side assuming I’d just keep the better, but they were both different enough and good I think I’ll keep them both. And Soul Calibur DC. And Soul Blade PS.

Interestingly enough, I do love fighters, play them a lot, but for some reason always suck.

There have been a few fighting games in the past I’ve devoted considerably time into. And even after mastering a character and beating the game, my friend can come over with little experience and still kick my ass. I’m just missing something.

But since I do love fighters, I own very very many of them for many systems. In the past I could devote myself to one. But now when I actually get a chance to play, it’ll put in an hour with a friend to one game. And next time it will be another game. So it’s really necessary that the game is relatively pick-up easy.

Now I’m not a button masher. By pick up I don’t mean just craming buttons and cheezing the fireball. I print out the special moves lists and we run through a few practice rounds with a character to learn the special moves and try to pull off some of the super-special attacks or fatalities, and then move to another character once we’ve seen all the moves. And I’m tired of getting my butt wasted. I always pick the cute girl and he picks the giant behemonth and then I complain about losing.

But if we play a game and run through a dozen characters and can’t pull off more than 25% of the moves, we figure something is wrong.

Now sometimes it is the controller. For instance stock PoS controllers suck in all regards. And I’ve had some 3rd party d-pad controllers for normal systems that somehow are incapable of registering directions right for special moves. I’ve had some amazing times where just switching a controller makes the difference between special moves being easy and impossible.

I acquired a homebrew game, but was having difficulties because it just wouldn’t play on my dreamcast.

I tried everything. Multiple power cycles, cleaning, disc swapping, using a game enhancer disc. I even made a CDR copy of it on my computer and it wouldn’t play.

But the system plays all other games fine, including other CD-Rs.

I grabbed one of my dreamcasts from my sale bin and tried it out on there, and sure enough it worked fine.

The assumption is that the laser is just getting touchy on my other dreamcast. But how can it be touchy such that it is so distinctly picky with what it plays or not? What gets me is that if it was just having trouble reading CD-Rs, why did it read other CD-Rs just fine? And if it was a problem with the specific pressing or quality, why did it still refuse to read a copy of the CD-R? The copy was on high quality media, no bit errors from the computer copy.

It seems more like there is something about the content of the disc, and not the actual quality.

Is it possible for a particular boot system to not work on certain revisions of the dreamcast? I know these homebrews use these boot systems which are exploits of some dreamcast hole. Did they clean up these holes in later models? Or maybe they didn’t exist in earlier models?

Not to mention an awesome array of shooters, again Sega CD exclusives
Android Assualt – could litterly be one of the best shooters ever, alongside the likes of Einhander
Silpheed
Robo Aleste
Soul Star
Keio Flying Squadron
(And you probably already have the orignal version of Lords Of Thunder, but still worth mentioning here)

And some more awesome Sega CD exclusives:
Adventures of Batman & Robin (driving/shooting plus exclusive batman animation)
Sonic CD
Terminator (platform shooter)
Road Rash CD (a unique 16-bit port of the 32-bit road rash incarnation, surprisingly the only version to include the music during the races, neither the 3DO nor Playstation versions have it!)

And I may be in the minority in the world, but I love a good FMV shooter. Visually pleasing, simple blastathon action.
Microcosm
Cobra Command
Ground Zero Texas
Road Avenger

And there’s plenty more where that came from.

I also have collected most of the new release Sega CD games (Bug Blasters, Star Strike, Battle Frenzy, Burning Fist, Citizen X). I’d recommend Bug Blasters if you’re into FMV shooters.

And also check out the imports. I’m probably the last lucky soul alive to get one of the MultiBios chips. I have:
Devastator
Dynamic Country Club Golf
Night Striker
Ranma 1/2 Byakuran Aika
Sengoku Densho
Urusei Yatsura: Dear My Friends
Yumimi Mix

Of these, I think Devastator is probably the most interesting. It’s very unique and grows on you, very old-school platform shooter action, but with graphics touches that feel kind of TGCD. And Sengoku Densho is also really interesting and unque wild dimension hopping samurai beatemup shape changing action. In another league compared to the terrible SNES port. My Sengoku Densho is for sale though since I picked up the Neo Geo version.

DOOM, the months I stared at the amazing graphics in Game Informer and on the erotic 32x commercials on TV, having to wait until Christmas to finally get to play my first 1st person shooter ever, when my computer wasn’t powerful enough to play any of them (16mhz 386 SX).

The hours I’d spend roaming every hall in each level trying to make sure I’d found every secret possible before hitting the exit.

That was definitely the highest point.

Despite Knuckles Chaotix being the traditional “yeah it’s the sonic (sorta not really) game unique to the 32X” it’s not by any means great or a system defining moment.

Then there was Virtua Racing, which despite having already rented for the Genesis (never buy though, whopping 80$ list price), was crystal smooth on the 32X, great sound, and two new tracks and split screen with no slowdown.

Star Wars Arcade was technically the game that propelled the 32X through the holiday season to keep it on the tails of DKC. Good thing nobody had played it before they bought it though. Having been an ace at X-Wing and worked through all the missions and training and everything, I was expecting an X-Wing quality flight sim, and instead I got to pilot the Hindenburg; and after listening to the real music on the Sega CD Rebel Assault, I wonder what hamster died in my speakers with the 8-bit beeps emulating star wars music coming out of that thing.

But it was still Star Wars and therefore I played the heck out of it. I can beat that darn Super Star Destroyer level in one shot every time now. The last level in the 32X mode is totally awesome though if you have the patience to get there and the stupid thing doesn’t crash halfway through.

But we really got our treat a few months later when Virtual Fighter came out and that was my first 3D fighter ever and it was amazing, and on top of that it was actually BETTER than the Saturn version. Bullocks to the Saturn, after I use my grades to get me a 32X and 3 games for x-mas, then they go and released the bloody SATURN on me? Oh no you di-n’t. Sure that demo of Panzer Dragoon was freakin’ amazing but when the HECK was my virtua-hamster and Alien vs. Predator going to show up for my 32X? It’s been listed on the Funco price list since BEFORE THE SYSTEM WAS RELEASED but not in stock yet, oh well we unlocked that grey metal dude and worked for days trying every button combo so we could list out all his special moves. The blue ninja dude with the flying head butt is my favorite, followed by the chinese girl with the spin crescent kick.

Well Virtua-Hamster and Alien Vs. Predator still weren’t showing up at Funco so I rented the other games that didn’t seem worth 60$ to buy to me, like space harrier and afterburner. Fun though, but I just wanted more for 60$ for my new system. I’d been ooing over the graphics on that mech game from the Jaguar, like Iron Soldier or something and Metal Head sure looked a lot like that from the box art. Play wasn’t bad, though the animation got real choppy if you were running and tried turning. But that level where you go into a building was pretty cool. But there was only like 5 levels and I swear to god there is no actual way to complete the last level. The game felt kinda incomplete, more like a tech demo.

So where are we at so far. Doom & VF definitely proud owners of 32X. VR and Star Wars worthwhile additions, some fun renters.

Finally the rest star rolling out. Never quite figured out what to do with Star Fleet academy. Dogfights were fun until you realized you can put the ship into reverse and torpedo the heck out of anyone without getting hit. Primal Rage and T-Mek I got for my birthday. Primal Rage was darned fun. I don’t care if it’s a bad engine, at least they admit to cheese when you perform it, and the gore, fun dino special moves, and actually getting to eat your followers was pretty darn fun. T-Mek was initially rather disappointing due to the fact that it was all 2D sprites and I was hoping for actual 3D. But I made fun out of it and eventually beat it.

Virtua Hamster and Alien Vs. Predator STILL not in at Funco WTF the used price in the price list was actually going down. Rented Shadow Squadron, that was actually fun, though short. Eventually bought Motocross after renting it, as it was one of the funnest arcade-style dirtbike racing games I ever played. It still is. I got it for like 20$ at Planet Games (RIP), which was a good price for that arcade style. Afterburner and space harrier should have debuted in that range.

In the mean time, the Sega CD was still really the strong point. Adv. Batman & Robin, Eternal Champions CD, Road Rash CD, BC Racers, SoulStar, EWJ-CD, those late-release games were and still are some great games of the whole era.

I KNEW that a 32x-CD combo game should be able to give me something equivalent to that amazing Panzer Dragoon stuff on the evil Saturn, (which soon was replaced by arch nemesis Playstation which managed to oust Sega anything from all the stores in a matter of months). But all we kept getting were remakes of Sega CD games, and all FMV games at that. I got Corpse Killer and despite everyone saying it should work with the justifier, it DIDN’T but I used the control pad anyway. A while later after I’d already beat it, I finally did acquire a Menacer, and it was actually more fun with the control pad. The Menacer has this follow-cursor thing, but it has so much lag that it’s impossible to actually target and shoot with it, because the shots actually fall on the slow-lagging cursor. It was GREAT for T2: Arcade though. Those built in 6-in-1 games though were too easy for too many levels though, they really need to make an option to let you start at level 20 or something.

So, I’d say Doom, VF, Virtua Racing, Star Wars, Motocross, Space Harrier, that’s the worth owning a 32X for list. Once you got the 32X, you’ll get enjoyment out of Shadow Squadron, Afterburner, Zaxxon/Parasquad, Primal Rage, Knuckles Chaotix, and BC racers unless you have the Sega CD version. Though you get 2P and better graphics in 32x, but you get better music and animated cutscenes in CD version. I didn’t own Zaxxon or Night Trap or Knuckles until post reinterest period, so I didn’t mention those earlier.

Darxide seriously if it was only a 5$ game I still wouldn’t own it, it’s rather boring and flat, despite proving that yes the 32X/CD combo could have provided stuff as good as the Saturn given the chance.

I also enjoy the Cosmic Carnage a bit, the hitting off people’s armor and the auto-zoom in (when even the Sega ports of Samurai Shodown still didn’t support it). Kolibri I’m not sure on yet. 36 Great Holes is a pretty fun golf game, though the putting system needs some work. Though arcade style golf has just been surpassed since I picked up Waialai on the N64 for 1$ and that is really good. Zaxxon is hard as nails but has a really interesting twist never done again, where you can take over enemy craft by humping them, and then you can gain much better firepower. Some horizontal 2D shooters have had similar ideas (blazeon, SNES; Gairies, Genesis), but nothing quite so effective.

And then that side article in Game Informer came one day mentioning, where is that Virtua Hamster? And they said it wasn’t coming. DAMN. I bet alien vs. predator wasn’t coming either.

And then Game Informer stated that this issue would be the last issue to include 16-bit, Genesis, CD, 32X, anything. And that was the last issue I ever got. And console video gaming died. I got a new PC to prepare for college. This PC could play Tie Fighter and Dark Forces. The era of PC gaming began. If Sega had just supported the 32X/CD, instead of confusing the market with both the 32X and Saturn, they could have completed against the evil playstation. Instead now we’re stuck with that horrible piece of junk playstation controller design for the rest of our lives.

I was at half price and noticed they had some master system games, and thought to myself, hmm, I wonder if they got a console traded in. But didn’t think too much of it (I already have a powerbase converter).

When I was looking through the display case of systems, I noticed in fact there was a master system at the top. 25$, not bad, but not cheap enough to buy to resell. But I kept reading on. “Complete, with power, A/V, 1 Controller, and ***3D GLASSES***” [emphasis added]. I was like no way. I’ve had the 3D glasses on my want list for years and still haven’t managed to find one (well excluding e-bay).

Actually I’m rather disappointed, I just looked on e-bay and despite its incredible rarity in the physical world, it doesn’t seem to command that high of price on e-bay. But 25$ is still a good price just for the glasses, plus I got a master system too.

The power supply that came with it was a radio shack replacement that actually is the wrong polarity so it won’t work, but I’m just gonna cross the wires to reverse the polarity.

Ok On with the show. When I tried out the glasses, only the right shutter was working; the left shutter remained open.

First I thought it was the glasses that were broke, since there was a crack in the plastic. To test that out, I pulled out my ASUS 3-D glasses from my ASUS V3800 video card (GeForce (1) 32mb card with video capture, video out, and 3D glasses. I still use this video card because they don’t made cards with 3D glasses anymore, and it plays all the good stuff (Jedi Knight, X-Wing, etc) just fine).

Those glasses are the same stereo mini-plug, so it should work with the master system too. Well it has the same issue, so I figured it must be the adapter.

So I opened up the adapter, and sure enough the 3rd prong on the stereo connecter was popped up, so it wouldn’t make contact with the plug.

I took a toothpick and pushed it back in and bent it over tight. I tried it again, and it actually still didn’t work. But I fiddled with the plug some and got it to work!

Then I pushed the pin down a bit more to tighten it up better, so it would have more solid contact with the plug. And then it worked a lot better. If you fiddle with the plug you can get it to lose the left eye, but generally it holds both signals perfectly now.

So the moral is that if you have 3D glasses that don’t work, try just fiddling with the plug. If you press to the right or left you might get it to kick back in. Otherwise, open it up and check that connect. It’s an easy fix and doesn’t even require soldering.

I bet half those “parts lot” 3D Glasses auctions on e-bay could be fixed this way.

And for anyone out there who was wondering if this “gimmick” is worth bothering with, the answer is a definitive YES. The 3D effect is rather amazing. It’ll hurt your eyes after a while because it forces cross-eyed rather than look-through. But the effect is great. Way better than Virtual Boy which was released 10 years later. (Though I still love VB too).

Here’s a picture showing the stereo connector inside the adapter. You can see the 3 metal rings that supply (from bottom to top) ground, right shutter, left shutter.

(Note: I was an Atari fanboy first with the 2600, then an Nintendo fanboy second with the NES, and I always wanted a SNES but I got a good deal on a Genesis from someone at school and never got one until 7 years ago, and I even own an N64 now. But I fell in love with Sega actually due to the Sega CD, which I think housed some of the best games ever made).

The Genesis came out in 1988, the SNES in 1990, and the Sega CD in 1991, which added scaling and rotation. I technically don’t think its unreasonable to consider a Genesis+CD unit as in competition with the SNES for basically all but the first year of the SNES life. But I didn’t directly compare any SNES to CD stuff here, but there’s a couple multi-ports listed.

The Genesis 6-button controller (And its successor, the japanese Saturn controller), was and is the best controller ever for arcade style games. It can be flat-out painful to play hardcore shooters and fighters on any other style of controller. So I tend to give an edge to games on Sega systems just due to the superior controllers.

Painful for fighters because having to use shoulder buttons or triggers for quick-moves is terrible.
Painful for shooters because the still D-pads on other system’s controllers strain your thumb too much (specifically Playstation controllers, where the D-Pad is like moving a brick), and using the analog thumb stick instead on a PS2 controller still makes your thumb numb after bout 10 minutes.

Argh I digress onto the control pads again. One thing I am biased about is control pads. It just blargs me off to no end that because Sony won the console wars that we’re stuck with that terrible controller style forever now (or something even worse like the Wii-Mote).

These lists are based on original lists by user SonicMegaDrive on neogaf.com. I did additional research to fill in some missing info and add some additional lists.

The main inspiration for creating/finding these lists was because I already knew that a lot of games were ported to multiple platforms, and there is always the question of which port should you get.

As a Sega fan, of course I give the edge to the Sega system, all other things being equal.

What threw a wrench in the gear was discovering that some ports of the same game are actually completely differnt games! In some cases one is better than the other, and you might have missed out on the superior SNES version, having though owning the Genesis version was sufficient (or vice versa). In other cases, both versions are good, but are such completely different games, that it is worth owning both, not just one or the other.

If you let the Sega and Nintendo fanboys duke it out, it all turns into “all X ports are shitty”. But from a slightly less biased point of view, I can make the following generalizations:
Genesis generally had better shooters and sports games.
SNES generally had better platformers and RPGs.
Genesis was faster, so gameplay and response was generally better
SNES had better graphics and sound, so it usually looked and sounded better

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Games with similar ports on both SNES and Genesis:
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Chances are if you’re reading this, you probably know about the biggest/only midwest video game convention. Be there! I’ll have a bigger booth this time.

http://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/
The first time I went to MGC (which was only as a visitor, not a vendor) was 2004, and it was held in Brookfield. Well, it’s back to that same place! I “Vended” at the Oconomowoc three times, 2007, 2008, and 2009.

Brookfield is of course another 15 minutes farther from home, but there’s more stuff to do in town. Not that I’ll get much of a chance.

I usually spend every cent I make at all the other vendors’ booths! Ha! No net gain. But at least by selling stuff, it’s like a free vacation. I sell enough to pay for gas and hotel, and then everything else I use to buy even more video games from my neighbors.

It’s just video game overload! It’s so amazing to walk into the vending hall and just see table after table of great cool and rare gaming artifacts.

As usually I try to keep my prices low. I’m in it for the fun and the hobby, not to make money. I buy a game, play it, and pass it on to the next person (of course I keep some games forever though!).

And of course I’ve got about half the booth full of retro 80’s toys, CCG, and comics as well, so there’s something for everyone!

I recently bought a fully boxed High Frequency 6-button controller at a thrift store, and was browsing the instruction pamplet, and was surprised to find a complete list of incompatible games. Well, it may not be 100% complete, but it contains 300% of all the games I already knew about anyway.

(Which is funny because I just played Golden Axe II last week and didn’t have any issues).

What is really strange is that it provides a list of “not recommend” games:

“The following games are not recommended for play with the HIGH FREQUENCY 6-Button Control Pad”:
Air Driver
Double Dragon 2
Slime World
Aliens
Stormlord
Clue
Jordan Vs. Bird
Trouble Shooter
Decapattack
Pit-Fighter
John Madden Football(1)

Which is interesting for several reasons.
1. I’ve played Slime World and Trouble Shooter without any issues.
2. There is no such game “Aliens” on the Genesis, I assume they mean Alien 3.
3. Forgotton Worlds cannot be played on this controller, even in 3-button mode, but it’s not on the “not recommended” list.

My guess is that this is some comprehensive list of games with some specific input usage that’s incompatible with 6-button controllers. But your mileage may vary, depending on whether that particular feature gets triggered or not during normal gameplay.